My kingdom for an Esc Key!

[MPTech]

no flames please.
I built my Cab from scratch 5 years ago using the UltimateArcade plans and an X-Aracde Tank-stick, before I found this wonderful site.
(Next cab will be a custom CP.)

Meanwhile, the X-Arcade has held up well and the only complaint I have is the Esc Key (or lack there of).
I have never been able to get it to work or map it to something useful.

I saw a post earlier that got me thinking. Could I gut a USB keyboard, somehow only keeping the Esc Key and plugging it into the USB port???
I know this isn't the most elequent solution, but it's better than what I have now (open the kb drawer and hit the Esc on the KB!)
It wouldn't look as cool on the inside, but from the outside, nobody would know.

[severdhed]

are you just using this for mame? or other emulators as well?  I'm not familiar with the x-arcade tankstick controller mapping.  is there a button that is mapped to esc and it just doesnt work?  If you are only using mame, you have two options.  you can change your mame config and tell it to use any key you want to be the exit button.(does not have to be Esc).  or, you could reprogram your x-arcade to map one of the buttons to the Esc key

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

You can remap keys at the windows level like this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/map-any-key-to-any-key-on-windows-xp-vista/

Would that work for you?

[BadMouth]

Let me know where/when you will hand over your kingdom.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=100885.0

 

[MPTech]

Well, now I need to go back an check.
I battled this monster for a couple years and eventually gave up trying. I contacted X-Arcade, and they weren't very helpful.
I don't even remember what the issue was with it, but I remember it was something unique to the X-Arcade (I seem to remember I got it to work kinda with MAME, but couldn't get it to work with MAMEWah or VPinball or Future Pinball, but don't recall the specifics now). I also remember it was some non-intuitive key combination (left-flipper & 2-player button or some non-sense). I'd just like to have a dedicated / labeled button.

My KB Esc works perfectly, my problem is my KB is in a closed drawer that I have to open and pull out the KB to hit. Kinda kills the Arcade mood when someone is playing and they want to switch games.

[MPTech]

badmouth, hmmm, I'm going to have to study that further when I get home.
I don't have the trackball, so I don't know if I have any un-used buttons, but it is an option.

(you don't want my kingdon yet, I still have 2 years left on my mortgage, 1 car payment, and 2 kids in college! (ouch!) but I'll let you know when they're all paid off!

[BadMouth]

The Tankstick has the trackball.  You must have the dual joystick model instead.

Anyways, if you have a button that you are willing to give up, you can still use autohotkey to make it post as ESC.

I'd recommend installing another button somewhere else and swapping the leads from the donor button over to it.
All those other buttons are too easily hit while playing.  Having the game exit while playing sucks.

There may be a way to get Autohotkey to post ESC only if multiple keys are pressed simultaneously, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know.
I learned just enough to get what I needed done.

or....

There is also a switch on the back of the x-arcade that will let you switch between different configurations.
Look in the instructions for how to remap the buttons.  If you remap one to ESC, it should work fine.

The downside of this setup is that you have to press the program button on the back of the CP twice to load the other configuration.
You have to do this every time you start up the computer.

[MPTech]

I guess your right on the Tank-stick / dual-stick. (sure looks like a tank control to me!)  I do not have the trac-ball.

Believe me, I messed with the X-Arcade, and kep re-maps for months and never found and workable solution.

That's why the USB / Esc key sounded simpler, if it did exactly what my current Esc Key does (not what the X-Arcade remap does (nothing!)

[bkenobi]

Maybe not the solution you were looking for, but if you wanted to, you could use 2 inputs to map to escape either via a script or just mapping in MAME.  This can be done either by pressing 2 buttons that are already on the CP or by making a new one.

For my main cab, I need 2 extra buttons.  I chose to make quit and pause the inputs as those are not going to be needed during heavy game play more than likely.  I picked pairs of inputs that would NEVER be used at the same time.  I then used a pair of diodes and connected P2up + P2down to quit and P2left + P2right to pause.  It works great in MAME.

I did have to put together a quick AHK script that mapped those button presses to 'P' and 'Escape', but that's only a few lines and ~10 minutes including testing.

It all depends on how hard you want to make things I guess.   

[Flaptop]

The tankstick x-arcade is able to remap the keys to whatever you need .

PROGRAMMING:
1.Start by choosing the mode you wish to program by moving the switch away from the serial cable to MODE 2, 3, or 4. Again, MODE 1 cannot be programmed.
2.Press the SAVE/LOAD button on the back of the X-Arcade™ (the light turns off).
3.Press AND HOLD any button or direction on the X-Arcade™ that you wish to change.
4.While still holding a button or direction from step 3, press and hold a key on your keyboard until the LED on the X-Arcade™ blinks. Once it blinks it has been programmed, and you can release both held buttons/keys.
5.Repeat steps 3 and 4 to program additional buttons/directions. (do not hit SAVE/LOAD again)
6.When you have programmed everything the way you want, press the SAVE/LOAD button on the back of the X-Arcade™ once more to save your settings onto the internal memory chip (the light turns back on

I have a tankstick too     and I was trying to remap the keys yesterday due to an update of my cab and I couldn't get things to work .
Normally as discribed on top you press the back button ( programming button ) twice  and the led goes out  , you hold a button on the  x-arcade  and then push a key you want the button to be registered at the keyboard (  done)
The problem here was that when I pushed the programming button twice the led only went out for a sec ,(not being able to go to the next step )
I Nearly broke my head on this one but after some troubleshooting I figured it did the job right Using an older pc  with a different  motherboard ,
I configured all the keys using the old pc swapped to the new machine  and all was working  like a charm.
If you have similar problems and have no access to an other pc I'd suggest you use a standard usb to  ps/2 adapter with did the job too(see, I couldn't let it go even  after I fixed it---->if it works don't try to fix it  )
BTW ,the motherboard It didn't work on was an Intel
after the fix with the usb --->ps/2 adapter I put it back on the regular ps/2 port otherwise it would still registering keypresses when holding a buttonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
And we don't like autofire on 1942 do we